Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

Washington, D.C., circa 1925. "Protesters" is all it says on the caption card for this National Photo glass negative showing what seems to be a meeting of the "Communist Party Young Communist League." View full size.

Larkspur, California, January 7, 1953. A photo of me I didn't know existed until a few days ago. I'm the second cowboy hat from the left at my best friend's 6th birthday party; I'd turned 6 the previous August. It's one of the rare childhood events that I've always carried a memory of; specifically: I insisted on leaving the party early so I could get home in time to watch "Time for Beany" on TV. My brother - whose hat that had been - came over and walked me home. My other classmates are the kid with the giant glasses on his head and the cowgirl behind the wide-eyed boy at right; I met up with her at our high school Class of '64 50th reunion last September. Others are mostly relatives, including June Cleaver his aunt setting up pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I gotta say, for a kid with a birthday so close to Christmas, it looks like my friend made out like a bandit.

Many thanks to his sister, the little girl at my side, for getting this negative to me to scan. View full size.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.